H.S. FOOTBALL: Whitman-Hanson slips past Plymouth South

Friday

Sep 8, 2017 at 11:40 PMSep 8, 2017 at 11:44 PM

With two seconds remaining in the game and Plymouth South driving at the Whitman-Hanson 5-yard line, coach Mike Driscoll’s club made the stand and came away with a 23-18 opening night victory at Dennis M. O’Brien Field on Friday.

By Nate Rollins, Enterprise Correspondent

Since day one of the new season, Whitman-Hanson Regional High football coach Mike Driscoll said it felt like his team never left the field. That would be in reference to last November.

It was on Thanksgiving when the Panthers closed out their campaign by rallying from a 21-0 halftime deficit to stun Abington, 29-28, via a Mike Connors two-point conversion with 1:47 remaining. On Friday night, it was Whitman-Hanson that watched the lead it had built through two quarters vanish, forcing it to engineer another comeback.

With two seconds remaining in the game and Plymouth South driving at the Whitman-Hanson 5-yard line, Driscoll’s club made the stand and came away with a 23-18 opening night victory at Dennis M. O’Brien Field.

“I told the kids over there, ‘Can we ever make it easy?’,” Driscoll said. “Last year this is the way we always ended them. I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

Trailing 18-17 with just under 2:25 remaining and the ball in its hand, Whitman-Hanson was in comeback mode once again. Fortunately for Whitman-Hanson, it had the right man under center.

On fourth-and-7 with the ball at the 44, a 17-yard run by signal-caller Ethan Phelps advanced the ball to the Plymouth South 29. On the next play, a Plymouth South penalty moved the ball at the 15.

Two Phelps runs thereafter, the junior was in the end zone. The score put the home team Panthers up 23-18.

“We had some issues,” Driscoll said. “They were taking away some stuff from us and that last run, that’s Ethan right there. He’s going to make those plays, and he made it again.”

Trailing 17-3 at the outset of the fourth quarter, Scott Fry’s Panthers began to ramp up the pressure on defense. A safety roughly two minutes into the frame made it a 17-5 contest.

“We’ve got a long way to go offensively,” Driscoll said. “In the scrimmages we didn’t look anything like that. That’s not our offense. We’re going to get better and we’re going to get explosive.”

Plymouth South turned the ensuing punt into six points when Alex Cohen took a quarterback keeper 21 yards to make it a one-possession game, 17-11.

Two drives later, Plymouth South found itself with a third-and-goal after a Cohen completion to Jalen Candelario. Cohen turned the prime field position into six points on a run up the middle. Carlos Cruz’ kick made it an 18-17 game with 2:25 to go, setting up Phelps’ late-game heroics.

The Whitman-Hanson defense, led by Connors (12 tackles, interception), stifled the opposing offense through the first two quarters, holding it to under 100 yards.